Pledge that Norwich’s historic parks are not for sale

11:13 02 September 2014

Dan Grimmer
dan.grimmer@archant.co.uk

Eaton Park in Norwich. Not for sale, say city councillors.

copyright: Archant 2013

Norwich’s historic parks will not be put up for sale, council bosses have pledged - despite a national report which revealed almost half of councils are considering such a move because of pressures on budgets.

Research by the National Lottery Fund revealed almost half of local authorities were considering selling parks and green spaces or transferring their management of them, as councils struggle to balance the books.

But officers at Norwich City Council, while acknowledging government cuts have piled on the pressure to keep up investment and maintenance in the city’s parks, say they have no plans to sell up.

A spokeswoman said: “Maintaining and improving our parks continues to be priority for us and with this, along with the invaluable support and work of local people, we have no reason to make compromises on standards or look at changes to ownership.

“The city has a wealth of fantastic parks and open spaces and time and time again, people tell us these are a very important part of Norwich life – providing free leisure opportunities.

“By doing things like negotiating new utility contracts and vehicle leases to make sure we continue to get the best value, we have managed to keep the amount of money we have to spend on maintaining our parks, playgrounds and open spaces pretty constant in the last few years. And we continue to receive steady sums to spend on improvements.”

Great Yarmouth Borough Council, West Norfolk Borough Council and Thetford Town Council said they had no plans to sell any of their parks, while North Norfolk District Council is transferring the clifftop North Lodge Park to Cromer Town Council.

This would be the final straw - and would signal the end of local government. To be honest though they don't look after them much anyway so surely we need to start to vote for change against the ineffective local government and union owned council?

I can guarantee that the City parks are not up for sale. As for selling City Hall... That was a proposal, a serious proposal I might add by the Lib Dem administration that was in control of City Council prior to the 2006 elections. The first thing the LABOUR administration did was to completely scupper these plans. City Hall.
The current
Labour administration has kept council taxes static through careful management, whereas the Green Party wanted to introduce substantial increases. This would have meant a costly referendum that would have had an increase rejected AND also resulted in huge losses in money allocated from Westminster. For the first time in over twenty years the current Labour administration is able to begin construction of hundreds of new council homes. The tories, supported by the greens no doubt, would love to sell off Council homes. What they don't tell you is that Westminster keeps 75% of the collected receipts

Surely if City Council sold it's parks it would break the law that requires them to provide green spaces. The amount of green space they are legally bound to provide is based upon population & with them building flats with little or no parking on every square inch they can. That population is building. So the council needs more green space, not less.